Pleasing myself

With two breakfasts out of the way fairly early on and no new guests arriving until Thursday, I decided to have a bit of a 'me' day and leave the ironing and cleaning until tomorrow. Having said that I was still up at 6.30am and didn't get to please myself until after 11.00am, which is a proper half day of work I suppose.

I am counting today's bike ride as pleasing myself, although it was a 20km cycle including rather a lot of hills. My normal ride is getting a bit boring and to be honest a bit easy. It will be fine for a bit of daily exercise when I don't have much time but I really need to push myself a bit harder to lose more weight and really feel the benefit - hence the longer and more challenging route today. Actually, it was Ok but my legs have felt a little heavy ever since without really hurting - I might regret saying that in the morning.

This afternoon I drove out to Chateau Saint Jacques d'Albas, which can be found in the middle of a beautiful valley in the Minervois between Villarzel and Laure-Minervois. The domaine is owned by an Englishman with the excellent name of Graham Nutter. I have tasted his mid-range red before and really liked it and wanted to go and taste the rest of their production and hopefully introduce myself.

Sadly Mr Nutter wasn't there but his wines were and a very helpful French lady took me through them all starting with the rosé and working through the reds to the top of the range 'La Chapelle'. Most of the wines have won awards and there is a new range of whites to come soon.

The other excellent bit of news was that as the owner of a 'chambre d'hôte', I qualified for the trade price list which offered a significant reduction on retail - so naturally I bought some to use at 42rvh for our weekend packages.

Finally this evening I played a couple of games of boules with David and Bob, down by the river in front of Patrick's house. Instead of the ten minute walk I used my bike to get down there - downhill to the river, slowly uphill back from it with heavy legs.

Everyone laughs when I say this but I always find a couple of games of boules quite tiring. I guess it's a bit of fresh air, a bit of exercise and a bit of tension as we always take it quite seriously - well, slightly seriously - someone usually brings along a bottle of wine, the effect of which is to improve the aim of some and drastically diminish that of others. The wine, therefore, becomes part of the tactics and teamwork - it's a very multi-faceted game.

As part of my new found discipline, I declined the pub and came straight home - having the bike and a set of boules with me is always a good excuse to head off. Besides, I am absolutely ready for my bed.